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Top Five: Some of the Week’s Highest-Rated Shows

With many of our usual favorites in repeats this past week –owing, in part, to the fact that the season of holiday specials and vacations is upon us — we decided to take a different approach to this week’s Top Five.

How? By showcasing some of the week’s most popular shows night by night, Sunday through Thursday. Starting with:

1) Thursday, “The X-Factor”: With CBS’s lineup of popular hits in rerun rotation, probably ’til after New Year’s, “The X-Factor Results Show” on Fox was the evening’s easy winner with a dominant 10.201 million viewers from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. (7-8c). It was a night to remember — unless you were contestants Astro and Drew, who both got the boot.

2) Wednesday, “Survivor: South Pacific”: Speaking of boots, Dawn and Whitney were cast off of “Survivor” Wednesday night on CBS, on an episode that came in as the top-rated series on any network for the evening (mostly because shows such as “Modern Family” on ABC were in repeats). “Survivor” drew 11.05 million, according to Nielsen nationals.

3) Tuesday, “Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer”: We were floored when we saw the numbers for this Christmas holiday classic rendered in old-fashioned stop-motion animation and starring Burl Ives as a talking snowman. This perennial favorite from 1964 drew 12.64 million viewers on NBC — easily beating everything on the networks that evening.

Watch a few minutes of this all-time great Christmas special here:

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4) Monday, “The Sing-Off”: NBC’s a capella singing competition show had its finale before a viewing audience of 5.98 million — not the highest-rated show on Monday night, but we feel this show is notable for hanging in there for the fall season in a noble attempt to transform itself from a light summer diversion to a bonafide regular-season performer. That didn’t exactly occur, but we happened to like the singing on display on this show each week.

In case you missed it, you can watch the “Sing-Off” finale right here:

5) Sunday, “Once Upon a Time”: It’s a fairytale come true for ABC — a series for 8 o’clock Sunday (7c) that draws more than 10 million viewers. This fanciful, fairytale-based series — part of a growing trend (well, NBC does have one of its own, “Grimm”) — is emerging as a strong competitor on Sunday nights.